On The Jazz II

So I should probably apologise to J.K.Rowling. That's right, after years of mocking (not tirelessly enough) her books I finally ended up reading the first Harry Potter novel. I tried not to, believe me, but when I got it for Christmas last year (yeah, good one Aimee!) I knew it was game over.

There was a brief glimmer of hope when some jerk stole my copy at London Heathrow (I being enroute to LA), but in the end all that really meant was that I ended up reading a book about a sorcerer's stone rather than a philosopher's. Well, that and the mention of boogers and bangs (c.f. fringe).

Anyway, back onto why I feel I must recant. As you may know I like funk, so anyone else who also likes funk can't be all-bad in my book. Previously J.K.Rowling had erroneously been in the all-bad category in my estimation. Erroneously because as it turns out JK is as funky as her namesake, the purveyor of modern-day (quasi)funk Jay Kay. How so? There are a pair of characters in the Potterverse - the Weasley twins. Apparently they're quite good at riding brooms. One is called something-or-other, I can't remember. But the other... the other is called Fred. That's right, Fred Weasley. I rest my case.

Reason number 2.

[spoiler alert!]
So there's a point in the story where a character is lured away by a forged message. This sets the scene for the climactic, danger-packed, super-exciting climax. So you see, if Dumbledork had known the message was forged then the book could have been a whole lot shorter. And this, I submit, is JK's whole point. The raison d'etre of Harry Potter and the Philosopher/Sorceror's Stone.

You see, in writing 'HPatP/SS' JK is merely espousing the notions of strong digital(/magical) authentication. She is saying to readers the world over:

'look! see! If only these wizards and witches had a decent PKI!'.

I take her point. Because hey, you may be Voldemort buddy, but not even your dark arts are going to help you forge a 4096-bit signature.

And that means, Dumbledork, that in future your messages really will come from You-Know-Who.


addendum:

I am aware that in the Potterverse they tend not to use computers and such. May I suggest the following spell as a replacement for PGP:

newt, frog, leg of spider
wine, beer and west-country cider
no need for pgp
got magical security
generate a private key
so I can prove that I am me

Labels: fred wesley, funk, harry potter, j.k.rowling, jk, lolwizard, pgp, pki, public private key, security, wizard